After surging in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich crashed and burned in Florida, and shows no signs or recovering. After several poor showings in a row, the vultures are circling over the dying campaign. One influential source, The National Review, has called on him to drop out of the race, and lend his support to Rick Santorum. Teresa, at Teresamerica, has more…
Today the National Review has taken a bold move and requested that Gingrich drop out of the race and endorse Rick Santorum. With Santorum’s rise in popularity and continued surge, and Gingrich’s implosion I think this is a good idea.
It isn’t yet a Romney–Santorum contest, but it could be headed that way. We hope so. Gingrich’s verbal and intellectual talents should make him a resource for any future Republican president. But it would be a grave mistake for the party to make someone with such poor judgment and persistent unpopularity its presidential nominee. It is not clear whether Gingrich remains in the race because he still believes he could become president next year or because he wants to avenge his wounded pride: an ambiguity that suggests the problem with him as a leader. When he led Santorum in the polls, he urged the Pennsylvanian to leave the race. On his own arguments the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit.
Santorum has been conducting himself rather impressively in his moments of triumph and avoiding characteristic temptations. He is doing his best to keep the press from dismissing him as merely a “social-issues candidate.” His recent remark that losing his Senate seat in 2006 taught him the importance of humility suggests an appealing self-awareness. And he has rightly identified the declining stability of middle-class families as a threat to the American experiment, even if his proposed solutions are poorly designed. But sensible policies, important as they are, are not the immediate challenge for his candidacy. Proving he can run a national campaign is.
This should be seen as the sentinel event that it is. Some major sources on the right are turning on Gingrich. The real question is, will Gingrich step aside for the good of the Party and Movement, or will he hang on for the sake of hubris?
The fall of Gingrich can be blamed on the same source that brought about his surge. He is well known for debating off the cuff, with little preparation. Given his incredible fund of information, and his ability to communicate, he could hit them out of the park. However, swinging for the fences is a double edged sword. Sluggers like Gingrich do hit a lot of tape-measure shots, but, they also strike out a great deal. And, in the end, that was his failing. Playing off the cuff works brilliantly sometimes, and causes embarrassment at others. That is not a way to run a Presidential campaign, no matter one’s level of intelligence, or grasp of the issues.
Santorum, on the other hand, has engaged in a wise strategy of sticking to issues, and communicating Conservative principals. For a case in point, kindly take the time to look at his CPAC speech, courtesy of Catholibertarian…
Slowly but surely, Santorum is uniting Conservatives. While it might simply be that he is the most consistent Conservative in the field, or that he “isn’t Romney,” he is galvanizing support for the right wing of the GOP. The real question now is if he can fend off the well funded, and unethical Romney smear machine. If he does take Michigan, Romney’s home state, it’s a race.
And frankly, that’s where Gingrich comes in. With Santorum running close to, and sometimes ahead of, Romney in the polls, he needs an additional bump to get over the top. This is especially vital when Romney’s money advantage comes into play. While Gingrich is getting 10 percent or so in races, most of his supporters would gravitate towards Santorum. With an endorsement, almost all would go. And, since there is little bad blood between the two, Santorum would likely take most Gingrich voters. That would go far to help Santorum take on Romney and his deep pockets.
Any way it goes, it should get exciting.
Matt
I believe that future generations should have the same opportunities that myself, and those that came before me, had. My parents taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I don’t want to have to tell my daughter, “You can do whatever the government tells you to do.” We are at a crossroads in this country; are we going to be free, or are we going to be slaves to the nanny state. I choose freedom.
I don’t think Newt is quite dead yet because he didn’t really compete in those three states last week so he may be flying under the radar right now. Super Tuesday will give us the final answer, if he doesn’t do well it will be time for him to go.
However, I think he is too arrogant and self-centered to drop out so easily and I think it would be a blow to his ego after telling Santorum to drop out a couple of weeks ago. You are right, this is just starting to get interesting.
He might not be dead yet, but not being in the headlines causes people to think that his candidacy is. I could be wrong, but we’ll see come Super Tuesday.
I agree with Steve. Newt’s arrogance may keep him from bowing out of the race and endorsing Rick Santorum. Currently, it is a very unpredictable situation.
Sadly, I agree as well.
Will Gingrich bow out? I hope so. But I think he’s going to stay until his last dollar is spent.
I’m afraid that you’re correct, Mr. Infidel.
If Gingrich has the money, he will stay in at least through super Tuesday. His ego won’t let him do otherwise. It will be interesting to see if Santorum’s coffer begins to fill now. No one will knock off Romney without a lot of money and organization.
I think his fundraising has had a healthy increase. I did catch ABC news tonight. They talked about how Santorum had so little money in Iowa, that his own car was his campaign headquarters. He has been heavily outspent by Gingrich, and blown out of the water by Romney. Yet, there he is, right near the top. Frankly, that might just say more about Romney than it does about Santorum.
When I saw you headline picture I thought, Maybe this is what the Mayans had in mind!
Heh, that is the Tsar Bomb. The most powerful Thermonuclear devise ever detonated. 50+ megatons!
When it is time for him to step down, if and when that time comes I don’t see Newt hanging in there for hubris.
Keep in mind, that although he was innocent of those so-called ethics charges, he stepped down as Speaker and from Congress for the good of the party. He also did not have to pay the bill for the ethics investigation. Yet he did. He paid the $300,000 not from campaign funds, not from special donors, but he paid this out of his own pocket.
Everyone is so quick to throw hate at this man, and I say that when we do that, we are being the sheep the MSM wants us to be.
Don, No one here said he was guilty of any of those things. For me, I get a strong statist vibe from him, and a ton of people don’t like him.
Time will tell how it ends, my friend.